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Kinderszenen, Op 15

Introduction

Friedrich Wieck was, as Schumann discovered, the father-in-law from hell. He so opposed the burgeoning relationship between the composer and his precious daughter—eight years Robert’s junior yet, one imagines, quite feisty enough to know her own mind—that he did everything in his power to break things up between them, from taking Clara on a seven-month concert tour to fighting the engagement in the law courts. As history relates, his efforts came to nothing, and love triumphed. While apart during that long tour in 1838, Robert and Clara wrote constantly to one other, and from Schumann streamed a succession of piano works, not least Kinderszenen, the most touching recollection of childhood. As he wrote to Clara, ‘Perhaps it was an echo of what you once said to me, that “Sometimes I seemed like a child”; anyway, I was suddenly visited by inspiration, and then I knocked off about thirty quaint little things, from which I have selected about twelve … You will enjoy them—though you will have to forget you are a virtuoso.’ When Kinderszenen was published the final tally of pieces was thirteen.

‘Knocked off’ hardly does these pieces justice; despite being modest in dimensions, each piece is as deftly and exquisitely crafted as anything in his more outwardly sophisticated mode. And though certain numbers may be simple enough for a reasonably talented child to play (or at least to stumble through) most are not, as witness the wildly exuberant ‘Knight of the hobbyhorse’ (Ritter vom Steckenpferd) or the manically gleeful ‘Blind man’s buff’ (Hasche-Mann). Among the most touching portraits here are the ‘Pleading child’ (Bittendes Kind), quietly insistent but ending, like the ‘Child falling asleep’ (Kind im Einschlummern), without resolution, tenderly catching the emotional inconsistency of youth. And Schumann conceives it beautifully as a cycle, from the haunting beauty of the opening ‘From foreign lands and people’ (Von fremden Ländern und Menschen), via the spare eloquence of the central ‘Dreaming’ (Träumerei), to the quiet rhetoric of ‘The poet speaks’ (Der Dichter spricht), the subject holding his audience rapt, his soliloquy ending in a whisper at the lower end of the keyboard.

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Details

Kinderszenen (Scenes from Childhood), Op 15, is initially deceptive on two fronts. At first it looks easy, but it is not at all, requiring a great mastery of touch and range of expression, and a poetic delivery. Secondly, it is not simply a collection of naïve pieces for children. When the poet and critic Rellstab (who gave the title ‘Moonlight’ to Beethoven’s Sonata Op 27 No 2) said that Schumann had set upon his piano a howling child and sought to give a realistic imitation of its sounds, Schumann angrily answered that it was a recollection of youth for adults, and that the titles had been thought of afterwards. Schumann’s childhood was far from ideal: his sister committed suicide when he was sixteen, and his father died shortly thereafter; and his mother made him study law against his wishes, finally allowing him to devote himself to music only when he was twenty years old.

Clara and Robert, when they did manage to meet, were often quite childlike in their joy. Robert wrote to her on 17 March 1838:

It was like an echo of something you once said, when you wrote to me that ‘I sometimes seemed to you like a child’—in short, I felt as though I were in pinafores again and knocked off around thirty quaint things, from which I selected twelve and called them ‘Scenes from Childhood’. You will enjoy them, but you’ll certainly have to forget yourself as a virtuoso.

The set (which in the end includes thirteen pieces) begins with Von fremden Ländern und Menschen (From foreign lands and people), whose disarming five-note theme recurs throughout the set. Kuriose Geschichte (A curious story) not only continues the expressive bass line already apparent in the first piece, but has some colourful octave doubling in the middle voice which should be brought out. In Hasche-Mann (Blind man’s buff), children vividly run around with their giggles being heard loud and clear. That opening figure is transformed into the pleas of an entreating child in Bittendes Kind which has some lovely counterpoint and ends on a question mark. Obviously the child got what he wanted because in the next piece he has found Glückes genug (Perfect happiness). In Wichtige Begebenheit (An important event) we must let the child engage in his own version of pomp, which wisely tails off at the end, allowing a beautiful transition into one of the most famous tunes ever written, Träumerei (Dreaming). I have often played this for an otherwise noisy group of school children as an example of a piece where you must be totally quiet to hear what is being said, asking them to dream something special at the same time. If ever an example is needed of how Schumann’s music must not be played metronomically in four-square bars and even beats, this is it. And what lovely counterpoint to go along with that melody.

We continue that cosy feeling in Am Kamin (By the fireside), although some fairly lively dialogue is going on as well. Incidentally, the difference in metronome markings between those of Clara and those of Robert are sometimes quite radical, and this piece is one example (Robert marks it at 138 to the crotchet, Clara at 108). The rocking of the knight on the hobby-horse is marvellously portrayed in Ritter vom Steckenpferd, with the right hand mimicking the back-and-forth movement it makes. We are back in a dreaming mode in Fast zu ernst (Almost too serious), with a syncopated melody adding to the feeling of fantasy. In Fürchtenmachen (Frightening), quite nonchalant lines alternate with threatening moments. Finally it all becomes too much for the child, and sleep comes as the cure for everything (Kind im Einschlummern), again leaving us suspended on the last chord. The adult has the final word in Der Dichter spricht (The poet speaks). There are not many endings in music as poignant as this one. Questions are asked after the initial statement, elaborated upon in a short recitative, and brought to their ultimate conclusion on a final chord which, ironically enough, demands the stretch of a tenth—something a child could never do.